


All Organic

by elicitillicit



Series: Assorted Drabbles and Shorts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, tbh I didn't know that coffeshop AUs were a THING thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4895884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elicitillicit/pseuds/elicitillicit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To be completely honest, Hermione applies to work at Brew Glory because the décor is perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Organic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cocoartist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoartist/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Coco! xxx

To be completely honest, Hermione applies to work at _Brew Glory_ because the décor is perfect. 

There are freshly cut flowers in big glass vases littered strategically around the repurposed shophouse. The paintings on the walls look _curated_. The floor is a sheet of perfectly even cement and the tables and chairs are hewn out of reclaimed wood. Everything is bright and airy and beautifully industrial with a touch of home and they make patrons pay $13 for a pot of tea, so _really_. Hermione is not ashamed when she admits to listening to enough _Fleet Foxes, the xx_ ,and _DCFC_ to be considered part of the local college hipster community.

Also, she kind of _really_ needs a job, because her parents are _upper middle class but not **that** upper middle class, darling_ , and this is the only place within sprinting distance from the campus library that’s hiring.

The manager, a tall black senior from the business school, eyes her dubiously as she slides her résumé across the table. “I don’t see how winning best delegate in three high school Model UN conferences and getting 2400 on the SATs qualifies you to make coffee.”

“It shows commitment and _excellent_ memory,” Hermione offers. “Furthermore, I can bake a variety of sugar-free cakes and pastries that are fully organic and don’t taste like shit.”

The manager glances around the bustling coffee shop, eyes lingering on the two _clearly_ overworked baristas manning the counter. She can pinpoint the exact moment when he caves and figures that it probably doesn’t matter what her coffee tastes like, because _Brew Glory_ attracts its clientele on the strength of it being so damn _pretty_.

He hands her a denim apron trimmed with faux leather and tells her to report at three the next day. 

* * *

Orientation involves herding her into the tiny kitchen where she is told that she is to bake at least one sugar-free cake every two days, teaching her how to use the cash register, and introducing her to the other two baristas on duty: an effervescent varsity cheerleader and her bitchier sorority sister. 

They skirt around the eight thousand dollar coffee machine that sits, gleaming and spotlighted, in the centre of the long counter space.

The manager – whose name is _Blaise_ – gravely informs her that the coffee machine is largely _Draco_ ’s responsibility. She is _not_ to touch it until Draco says that she can, because _Draco will know; Draco always knows_ , and she will only learn how to make coffee _after_ Draco has walked her through its maze of knobs and levers and is convinced that she will not destroy the coffee shop’s golden goose.

 _Draco_ is apparently the owner of this entire business – or, rather, his _father_ , who owns a chain of ridiculously trendy restaurants in LA, does – and he only does the evening shifts. Hermione jokingly inquires if he is, in fact, a vampire, but then the bitchy sorority girl scoffs audibly. She fights the urge to throw a bag of coffee filters at her and retreats into the kitchen to start sifting flour. There’s enough time to get a sugarless lemon drizzle pound cake into the oven before this _Draco_ person turns up to start her on her hipster barista career proper.

* * *

It turns out that she already knows who _Draco_ is.

Harry has been bitching for _weeks_ about the smarmy, arrogant, inbred motherfucker in his classes who casually critiques _every single fucking point of law_ – _purely academic_ , Harry mimics sourly – and never misses an opportunity to shove his prep school education in everyone’s face. 

She and Ron had made all the requisite noises, scrolled through Malfoy’s Facebook profile and dutifully called him a dipshit, and then taken Harry out for pizza.

So Hermione is quite aware that Malfoy is a jackass to the nth degree, and by the unspoken laws of Friendship in General, she should be punching him in the face before dramatically quitting her new job.

But, because she is twenty-one years old and a first year medical student who is sinking deeper and deeper into debt, she makes a mental note to discourage Harry and Ron from visiting her new workplace in the evenings and joins Draco Malfoy at the coffee machine.

He’s tall and almost _distressingly_ blonde and attractive in a polished, polo-shirt wearing kind of way, but three seconds into meeting him, Hermione can see why Harry has been driven to plotting actual murder.

He scowls at her hair and her oversized linen pants and blithely informs her that they have an _image_ to uphold, so he’d appreciate it if she looks less _Homeless in Harlem_ and more _Gentrified Greenwich Village_. He asks if she wears her retainers _regularly_ , and sniffs when she tells him that as a child of two exceedingly facetious dentists, her teeth are _perfect_. He calls Blaise over, expresses disappointment over how he hadn’t been involved in the hiring process at his _own_ coffee shop, and tuts over the battered résumé that Blaise had chucked under a pile of old waffle makers.

Blaise throws her a look from over Malfoy’s shoulder that reads _please just roll with it; I really need to keep you_ , and Hermione refrains from doing the aforesaid _punching her new boss in the face and dramatically quitting her job_.

Malfoy eventually balls her résumé up, tosses it into a corner, and glides over to his coffee machine. “I’m only saying this once,” he threatens, and Blaise sighs the sigh of the long-suffering and disappears into the kitchen. 

And then, Malfoy launches into an incredibly intense tutorial on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee.

Hermione struggles to keep her expression neutral, because nothing about roasting beans or cleaning out coffee grounds should be funny, but she hasn’t seen anybody this passionate about something since freshman year, when she’d snuck into Professor Snape’s postgraduate chemistry lecture (which had, towards the end, devolved into him striding up and down the front of the lecture hall, muttering about alchemy).

And a Draco Malfoy _this_ passionate about _coffee_ isn’t at all annoying.

It’s… cute?

“You need to take _pride_ in every cup, Granger,” he’s saying fervently as he churns out a sample cup for her. “Every sip should taste like an essence of effort distilled into _gold_.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about, but she takes the cup and sips from it dutifully. 

It’s good, but she really wouldn’t call it _an essence of effort distilled into gold_. She _does_ , however, see why people would pay eight dollars for it in the early mornings.

She makes a double macchiato and Malfoy doesn’t spit it out.

She’s officially hired.

* * *

Hermione starts taking the busy afternoon shifts with Daphne the cheerleader, who begins sneaking expensive European conditioner into her bag along with _Zalora_ vouchers. Pansy, who is far less tactful, tells her that there is a _difference_ between being artfully grungy and looking like she’s wearing her father’s jeans.

She gets the hint and bullies Harry’s girlfriend into going shopping with her. Ginny tends to lean towards the whole Nike Flyknits with sundresses aesthetic, but she’s also spent her entire life dredging through bargain bins and taking a needle to someone else’s clothes, so she knows a thing or two about what looks good on a body.

Malfoy comes in for his shift one day and stares at her while she takes off her apron before muttering that she doesn’t look too bad in the yellow shift dress she’s got on. Blaise sniggers and Pansy lifts her eyes to the heavens and Daphne asks him if he intends to close his mouth any time this century, and Hermione feels _very_ smug when she exits and he’s still squinting after her. 

He starts coming in earlier and entertains himself by engaging her in conversations about Donald Trump and laughing at her rising fury. He discusses the _Black Lives Matter_ movement through the lens of social media with surprising insight and delicacy, so she almost _doesn’t_ want to reach over and strangle him when he concludes, completely deadpan, that _all_ lives matter.

Harry and Ron come in to surprise her one day at work, and Malfoy is in _such_ a good mood from lounging around the counter taking pot shots at Hermione’s stance on gun control laws that he only makes _one_ crack at how Ron is probably unable to afford his coffee.

Hermione pretends not to see Daphne quietly giving Ron a discount. Malfoy is too busy watching her carefully measuring out coffee beans to notice.

* * *

Malfoy gathers them together after a month for _employee bonding_ , which involves sitting around at one of the tables after closing time with leftover cake and decaf coffee. He’s read in one of his father’s self-help business books that the key to a thriving company is in _knowing both one’s employees and one’s clients_ , so he’s gotten people to participate in a raffle. The prize is a bag of _kopi luwak_ , and Hermione does not envy anyone who wins it, but some people take coffee _really seriously_.

People like Malfoy, who can order a _schlong_ with a straight face.

(“Why can’t you just call it a _short black_?” she’d asked once, after a group of frat boys had stumbled in and ordered, extremely loudly, _eight schlongs, and make them all extra large_.

Pansy, engrossed in detailing the windows of the empire state building in the foam on top of a flat white, hadn’t looked up. “It’s the novelty factor,” she’d mumbled around a breath. “People order things just so that they get the thrill of saying something a class of grade six boys would find uproariously funny.”)

Either way; Malfoy is now adding a shot of Bailey's into everybody’s cup while inquiring _if you were a cup of coffee, what would you be?_

“Hot,” Pansy smirks. Blaise rolls his eyes.

Daphne, who’d modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch in high school, resignedly refers to herself as a _flat white_.

Hermione chokes, and Blaise thumps her good-naturedly on the back before affirming that he would be a long black.

“You think very highly of yourself,” Malfoy huffs, but Blaise just grins.

He then turns to her, and Hermione tries not to get distracted by how the shadows cast by the low (stupidly artistic!) hanging jar above them make his cheekbones look _glorious_. “A latte, I guess.”

Malfoy tugs her coffee from her to make it more Irish before she can protest.

“Don’t be boring!” he chastises, and is she imagining how his fingertips linger against hers as he passes her back her cup? “A affogato? Ristretto? Insomnia? That’s four shots of ristretto. Very helpful for finals week,” he assures her.

Hermione shudders. Four shots of ristretto during finals week sounds like a health hazard waiting to happen.

“What do you like best about working here?” Malfoy presses, and out of the corner of her eye, she notes that Pansy has sat back, a little put out at the fact that Malfoy is _clearly_ only addressing her.

She takes an uneasy sip of her coffee – it’s _really_ quite alcoholic; he did _not_ stinge on the liquor. “Your interior decorator is a genius,” she says evasively, and is a little surprised when Pansy snorts and says _thanks_.

Malfoy, however, barrels on. “What else?”

On her left, Blaise downs his coffee like a shot and reaches – very unsubtly – for his jacket.

“Um. The coffee really is quite good.”

“And?”

“It’s really convenient to get to from campus.”

“And?”

Daphne is pouring the rest of her coffee into a to-go cup. Pansy is emptying hers into the sink. Hermione feels a little trapped, but also _not_ trapped, if you know what she means?

“ _And_?” Malfoy pushes, and she misses the other three employees sidling out the back door.

“Um,” Hermione breathes, suddenly hyperaware of how broad his shoulders are and how straight his nose is. Why would she ever want to break it?

He is clearly still waiting for an answer.

“You’re not a _complete_ dick,” she blurts out, and he recoils as if he’s been slapped.

“I mean, I thought you’d be,” she explains, and she can barely hear herself through the blood pounding in her ears. “Harry says you’re an asshole, and you do say _really offensive things_ but I don’t know if you even actually mean them half the time or if you’re just saying them to get a rise – and – but you’re funny? When you’re being nasty? And adorable when you talk about coffee? You have a _face_? Oh my _god._ ”

Malfoy, who has been looking steadily more confused but flattered, barely catches the coffee cup that she thrusts at him before she stands up hastily enough to jostle the table. “Bye!” she squeaks, and flees before she can lose the job that puts her in daily contact with a person that she would otherwise _never_ see.

* * *

The next day, Hermione’s common sense eventually wins out over her cowardice and she puts on her fancy new skinny jeans (they make her ass look _phenomenal_ , Ginny _promised_ ), holds her head up high, and goes to work.

Malfoy’s already there, lounging against the counter, and he hands her a steaming tulip cup of coffee. “It’s a double ristretto topped with milk,” he tells her conversationally.

She takes an experimental sip, and tries to tell herself that it’s the _coffee_ that’s warming her cheeks and not the concentrated fascination that she can read in his eyes. “What’s it called?”

His smile is slow and warm and jolts every nerve ending that she has into action. “Magic.”


End file.
